Blindness

I read Blindness by Jose Saramago a while ago, but I forgot to put it up here. This book really was an amazing read. I think everyone could get something out of it.

A man is at a stoplight in Portugal. (I think it's in Portugal, but I'm not absolutely positive. It's not necessary information anyways.) Out of nowhere, he loses his sight. It's not regular blindness, where everything seems to be black. It's eventually called "white sickness" or something like that, because everything is a milky white color, almost like you could see but there is such a thick fog over your eyes that it's *just* out of sight. So, after some confusion, a man helps him to his home. This same good Samaritan later steals his car.
There's a couple pages of the blind man feeling pathetic and knocking stuff over on accident. His wife arrives and they go to an optometrist, who doesn't have many answers for them since his condition is so unusual and his eyes are otherwise in perfect condition. I think by this time the blind man has been told many times that it was something spontaneous and his vision may return.
Well, the optometrist sees his other patients: a boy with a squinty eye (apparently squinty isn't a real word), a girl with something wrong that I forgot who has to wear dark glasses, and some older man. Later when he is home, he checks all of his books looking for anything he can find that might reveal what is wrong with the man's eyes. Then, I'm sure you guessed it: He goes blind. Instead of panicking, he goes to bed. The next day, he hears about some other spontaneous blindness happening to someone else. He lets someone know, I forgot who, that it might be contagious. Some stuff happens (not a lot) and the city starts rounding up the blind people and those they've with whom they've had contact.
So, knowing that they're coming for her husband, the optometrist's wife packs a bag for him and herself. Pretending to be blind (and believing that soon she will be), she is allowed to go along with her husband. They're taking to a sanitarium and left there to fend for themselves. The blind are in one wing and the soon-to-be-blind in another. Members of (the Portuguese?) military are placed outside the gates of the building to guard and daily feed the sanitarium. As you may have well guessed, the blindness spreads fairly quickly. All of the optometrist's patients soon arrive and the car thief and original blind man. Tensions mount as they're forced to live together, not being able to see each other, and not trusting each other. While all of this is going on, the optometrist's wife has still not lost her vision.

I'll leave off here. I think that's only the first 20-30 pages of the book and enough to hook most people. Reading the beginning of the book and the back cover and all that, I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen and wondering why I should even read it. I'm very happy I did, because I don't think anyone will be able to predict the path this book takes.

Of course, because it's a fairly popular book with a reasonable plot, it was made into a movie. (I don't in any way mean that completely ridiculous books aren't made into movies. You know which ones I'm talking about.) It stars Julianne Moore, Danny Glover, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal, and a few other good actors and actresses. I really do plan on watching it, though just by reading the wikipedia profile of the characters in the movie, I know it will have a different take on everything.

A funny little piece of information about the book: the US-based organization called National Federation of the Blind strongly opposed the book's blindness=ignorance metaphor. At least, that's what I'm assuming they mean. Wikipedia said: "negatively portraying the blind". Kinda ridiculous.

There is a sequel to this book and I will definitely be reading that, along with whatever other books of his I come across.

I'm sure most people have heard about this already, but I'm making a post about in case some haven't seen it yet. It is video footage of an attack in Iraq on a group of civilians and another group of people who came to help the civilians by American soldiers. The video is very disturbing and upsetting. If you don't think you can handle watching it, the website collateralmurder.com has transcripts of the video available. This was released by the website wikileaks.com yesterday. The actual attack happened in 2007.

The group of people in the video are civilians. Two people in the group were associated with Reuters. One was a crew person and the other a reporter. There is more about that on the collateral murder website. Had they not been associated with Reuters, I highly doubt this would have ever come to light.

I strongly encourage anyone who reads this to check out wikileaks.com and consider making a donation. That is where the video was first posted, even though the website has been down for a while due to insufficient funding. I apologize for the video not fitting my layout, but I think everyone should visit the collateral murder website and view the video and transcripts there.

Being Dead

I've been so busy lately, filling out job applications and thinking about going to summer school this year. But, I've managed to finish another book. I have about three others that I'm about half way through. The one I've read completely is Being Dead by Jim Crace. After reading it, I'm not sure at all how this one managed to sneak its way onto my list. Well, I guess I actually do know. Most of the books on my list came from different websites where people suggested books that everyone MUST read. Very, very strange suggestion whoever this came from.

First, the book is SUPER graphic in its description of death and the decomposition of the body. I mean, I read a book on body farms and it didn't go into even half the detail this book did. I don't think I'll be giving too much detail away, since the title is Being Dead. The main characters in the novel are dead. You meet them as they are being murdered. But, this isn't Law and Order, so that's that with the murder. We don't hear if they ever find or catch the guy or anything. This is actually okay with me, because I'm not really too into crime novels. The story then goes to when the two main characters first met. It isn't a linear story, even from there. It goes back and forth between Joseph and Celice's meeting, death, and a few hours before their murder. Then, you have the story of their daughter thrown in for a couple of chapters.

Anyways, onto my opinion of it. I didn't really like it. It just seemed kind of forced, in a really weird way. (The weird way isn't good.) Sort of like the author thought, "Hmm, death is shocking. Let me create a story surrounded by death and make it not shocking." The book, boiled down to its barest form is a story about two boring people and their sooo crazy, outrageous, bald rebel daughter. It's not even a damn love story. These two dull as shit people meet on a marine biologist trip to a coastal city. Four guys, two girls. Of course, three of the men and one of the girls are so contrived and fake with only one thing in mind (the opposite sex, in case you didn't know). And, of course the one girl is dimwitted and bats her eyelashes at everything and has an annoying laugh and is pretty, blah blah blah. The author makes them out to be these completely horrid, fake people ("OMG, they paid for hookers") to make the irritatingly boring main characters seem good in any light. So, of course the empowered, but not as beautiful Celice ends up with the different, and not explicitly "only there for the pussy" guy, Joseph. Blah, blah: there's some prostitutes, pretty people ignoring the ugly ones, weird ass sea-crickets (or something, I don't know). During this week or whatever, Joseph and Celice fall in love (duh) and then something awful and traumatic happens that scars Celice forever.
While the author tells you this story, he goes back and mentions how Celice and Joseph are rotting, GASP, in the same place that they first had sex: on the beach, in a dune or something. They were hit in the head with a cinderblock or something like that (apologies for saying "or something" after every sentence, I can't help it) and were touching when they died. Anyways, when they get older, they drift apart a little. Joseph is neurotic, but content for the most part with his life; but, Celice is bored with everything and craves adventure still. Yeah, you probably could have guessed all this by reading the back cover. But, the secretary (who hates her boss, durr) is worried when her jerk boss doesn't show up for a meeting and calls their crazy rebel daughter who is so crazy rebellious and doesn't care. BUT, she does care and gets worried as well, quits her job, and goes and visits her parents house. I'm not going into more detail about the daughter, because, frankly (lol) she's an annoying stereotype (boring, grounded parents = crazy ass kids, especially if they're an only child), worse than the parents.
So, Celice and Joseph, right before they died, go back to the place where the traumatic event occurred, are relieved by it and then go meet their maker, on the beach dune or something (fourth time? I've said this) after having sex (which was short and passion-less, "OMG, just like their lives, but soooo different from their first time and their deaths"). Their daughter, when she finds out what happened to them, turns their death into something selfish, but then genuinely misses them, like 3/4 of a page later.

In the end, it's a story about how they were so boring in life, but weird, exciting, passionate, whatever in death. They loved each other, even though they slept in separate rooms and didn't really connect much, because Joseph touched Celice's leg when they died. Yeah, you could of wrote a short story and cut the fat. But, don't let my bitchy review sway you if you were thinking about reading it. My boyfriend loved it, but then again, he enjoys reading books like Dune and stuff (I have no idea what that could possibly mean).

I know I don't do book ratings or whatever, but this is about a 4/10. I didn't like it, duh.

3 more books

I've not been able to really update lately. It snowed over the weekend and when you're somewhere that it never snows, a couple of inches shuts the whole town down, ugh. That, plus an unreliable internet connection (damn you neighbor down the street, move closer so I can leech off of your internet easier) means infrequent posts. In the past week I have read three more books: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. I genuinely enjoyed all three of these.
The majority of The Inheritance of Loss takes place in Eastern India, in Kalimpong, and is the story of Sai, her grandfather the judge, his cook, and the cook's son Biju. The novel begins with a typical day in their lives: the judge playing chess with his dog at his feet, Sai reading a magazine article, and the cook getting ready for afternoon tea. This is all cut short when two young men bust in demanding the judge's guns. You find out that the young men are Nepali-Indian separatists. They rummage through the judge's belongings, running off with the guns, some alcohol, and a few other things. The rest of the book is what happened earlier, to lead up to this.
After this introduction, you're introduced to the cook's son, Biju, who lives in New York City and hops from one shitty job to another. Despite being told that America was great and being encouraged, especially by his father, to take any chance to move there, Biju doesn't seem to feel at home and struggles with not wanting to be there, knowing that it is where his father wants him to be and that others would do anything to be in his situation. He deals with all this, while seeing others, including another Indian man, trying to achieve "the American dream". Sai, meanwhile, has been taking lessons from Lola and Noni, two sisters who live together. When they feel they can no longer teach her certain subjects, the judge hires a Nepali tutor named Gyan, with whom Sai falls in love. Drama follows and their relationship is tested.
While all of this is going on, you are given the judge's past: his time spent in England at Cambridge, how he rejected his wife and daughter, and how he began to reject and disdain all things Indian. With quite many of the characters in the story being extremes: Sai (never having anything to do with Indian culture, not even knowing Hindi, having gone to a Catholic boarding school most of her life), the judge and his struggle with his culture, the two sisters Noni and Lola who idealize all things Anglo, and, on the other side, the Nepali-Indians who feel equal disdain for all of the aforementioned, you see Biju as the middle balanced in between them all. He goes off to a foreign country, but instead of loathing where he came from and his countrymen, he feels homesick, but still doesn't hate the United States, either.
It's difficult to explain this novel. But, I do feel grateful for having read it. It shows you the struggles with which this post-colonial era country is dealing. I never really thought about how Indians deal with their own culture and the effects of the British having been there for so long. The book received a lot of criticism from Nepali people for what they thought was a misrepresentation of Nepali-Indians. I don't really know what to say about that except that all people are never going to be satisfied with everything. I will say that I am ignorant to what is going on in that area, with the exception of what this book portrays. I will read more about this, because there's always two sides to any story. If you were curious, the book does not portray Nepali-Indians as crazy terrorists or anything of the such. But, it is a bit harsh from the perspectives of several characters. Maybe it should be taken as just that, though, the characters' opinions and not necessarily what the author thinks? Asides from just that, it really was a great book. You don't have to have any previous knowledge of India or its politics to understand and appreciate this novel.



The second book I read, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, is a book I'm sure most American students have at least heard of, if not read already. I know it was required reading by several teachers in my high school, just not by any of mine. It took me about 30 pages into this book to really be interested in it. It's a bit slow and reading it, you don't really get why you are. But, I assure you, it goes somewhere. If you absolutely can't read this one and have decided to put it down, at least read the last chapter. I don't really have much to say about this one, for fear of giving too much away. It was slow and reads almost like an anthropology textbook. If that bothers you, appreciate the fact that it is at least a Nigerian man, and not some American college professor who has never even been to Nigeria, giving you the lesson. After reading this all the way through, I absolutely understand why it is required high school reading for many American students.

Finally, Memoirs of a Geisha. I'm sure everyone else in the world has already seen the movie or knows what this one is about, but before now I had never really had any interest in this book or the movie based on it. I think, of these three books this one might be my favorite. It was just a story, no message or moral at the end. The book was full to the brim with drama and characters. I really read this one all the way through in one very long sitting. The characters are ones that you can transpose yourself and your people you know onto.
I'll be brief with the description of this one, since I'm sure most people know what it's about. Chiyo and her sister Satsu live with her father and terminally-ill mother in a small fishing village in Japan. They are taken away by Mr. Tanaka, who Chiyo thinks is going to adopt them. In reality, he buys them and then sells them to an okiya (geisha boarding house?) and a brothel, respectively. Chiyo is treated poorly by everyone there, especially Hatsumomo, and longs to run away with her sister. Hatsumomo, the head geisha and bread-winner of the okiya, mistreats Chiyo, often making her do things that get her in trouble later, holding information that Satsu gave Hatsumomo to pass on over her head. Eventually, Chiyo attempts to run away, but is caught after she falls from the roof of a neighboring building. Having tried to run away, she is ineligible to become a geisha, due to it being a risky investment. All of her classes stop and she stays at the okiya as a maid.
One day after being sent out to run an errand, she is upset (again) by Hatsumomo and she stands by a river, crying. It is there that she meets the Chairman, who attempts to cheer her up. Having been encouraged by a random stranger, she resolves to resume her geisha training, despite being barred from doing so by the mother of her okiya. Eventually, Mameha, another geisha in Gion takes Chiyo under her wing as an older sister in an attempt to get back at Hatsumomo. The rest of the novel is her struggle to become a geisha and find the Chairman again: love, drama, WWII, friendship, etc, etc.
I really did love this book. It was a bit ridiculous at times, but what drama-filled love story isn't? I really recommend this book to everyone, because it isn't beyond anyone. It is easy to relate to Chiyo/Sayuri and equally as easy to substitute people in your own life for those on the page. I wouldn't call it any ground-breaking Pulitzer-deserving novel, but it was definitely a fun read!

While all three of these books are set in countries other than the United States, overall, the next group of books I checked out from the library seem to deal (almost) exclusively with white, middle-class males: White Noise by Don DeLillo, Being Dead by Jim Crace, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Blindness by Jose Saramago (well, this one doesn't seem to fit at all), and Herzog by Saul Bellow.

Norwegian Wood

I finished Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami this morning at 5:30. I'm one of those people that has to read whatever book I'm reading in as few sittings as possible, no matter how much my sleep suffers for it. I hate stopping what I'm doing to focus on something else. I am reminded of how annoying a trait this is constantly by my boyfriend, haha. I've noticed my younger sister is exactly the same way, worse even.
Anyways, Norwegian Wood. The emotion in this book is so strong and intense, even if the most of it was loneliness and sentimental longing, that it made The Handmaid's Tale come off as about as emotionally gripping as an instruction manual. I really don't know how I made it through The Handmaid's Tale after reading Norwegian Wood and genuinely caring for the characters in it and the story.
The story itself doesn't sound that great when described: yeah, yeah, suicidal friend, lonely university, skanky friend, skankier girl hanging around that he thinks he likes better than suicidal friend's girlfriend. But, seriously this book should be required reading for high school and university students. I can see this appealing to the same set that loves Twilight, Harry Potter, and all that stuff, if they could broaden their tastes. It's got drama. The main characters are all under the age of 21, with the exception of one. There's a love story there. I don't even know why people read that Stephanie Meyer's shit when there are more gripping stories, written better, directed at the same people (though I'm not sure if the author would agree).
Starting the book I wasn't much interested myself. It seemed too sentimental: a 30-something year old man reminiscing about a college girlfriend, BORING. But, I don't know how many different ways I can put this, the book was magnificent. You're slowly introduced to all the characters in Toru Watanabe's life: his friend, his friend's girlfriend, his roommate. As you're introduced, he tells little anecdotes about each and his life in general. Being accustomed to less subtle and more - HEY REMEMBER THIS! THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR LATER, SO I'LL REPEAT IT A COUPLE OF MORE TIMES TO REALLY POUND IT IN - type writers, I was braced and anticipating something the whole novel. And, it happened. Something happened at the end, but it was natural and not forced, like I was expecting. All of this hinting and foreshadowing that I thought was happening was just the story, kind of like life. I guess so many people thought the same thing that the author (according to the translator's note) was asked frequently if the novel was in any way autobiographical. Murakami has such a clear and concise style of writing that could never be cultivated, but must be some sort of innate gift.
Toru Watanabe is a typical university student. He has an annoying roommate that he jokes about with everyone in the dorm. He had a girlfriend he broke up with to move to Tokyo. He's studying something just to study it and graduate. But, before he left high school, his one and only friend killed himself. This one act affects the next several years of his life (and the rest of it, too, if he's still thinking about it in his thirties). After a year or so, he reconnects with his deceased friend's girlfriend, Naoko. The talk and see each other for over a year in the book. Then, the day of her twentieth birthday (in Japanese culture, age twenty is when you are a true adult), they sleep together and her psyche seems to just crumble. She disappears and a couple of weeks later, Toru finds out that Naoko has checked herself into a mental help facility (I don't really know what to call this) that is more like a community in the mountains of people trying to escape the outside world. Toru struggles with this by getting drunk with a friend and sleeping with random girls he meets in bars. He meets a girl named Midori in one of his classes and gets tangled up in her life, too. The rest of the book is Toru dealing with all of these things and people in his life. He struggles with his love for Naoko and her mental illness that seems to push him farther away. The characters in this book are ones that you won't forget (or maybe you will, I only read it this morning, so I would I hope I still remember them). They don't seem like characters in a book, but fleshed-out people who truly exist. Toru is someone that everyone can relate to; so much so that you completely understand his situation and dilemma and know that you would be tangled in the same web if you were presented with the same choices in your own life.

I am very much looking forward to reading more books by Haruki Murakami. I think I'll save them for a later date so as not to spoil myself with his style. I went to the library today and checked out Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. So, one of those will be next.

One down, ??? to go

I have completed my first book from my list: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I know this must be complete sacrilege to basically everyone in the world, but I was a bit unimpressed. Everyone, especially my older, science fiction-obsessed sister, always says "Oh, you have to read The Handmaid's Tale", "Oh, it's so great, it influenced everything", blahblahblah.
Well, I can definitely see where it was influential, but it had such a ... 80s? vibe to it that it was hard to take it completely serious. I don't mean 80s as in they were wearing purple overalls (which they were). I don't think I can explain that further, but it was just something off that was bothering me. I might have to re-read it to be able to explain it better (or at all), lol.
If it didn't have so much hype surrounding it, I honestly think I might have liked it a little better. So, I guess the problem I had with it is that it didn't live up to that hype. I'm a bit concerned about having 2 or 3 more books by Atwood on my list, but I'm definitely open to reading more of her. I read a summary of Cat's Eye and it sounded worth reading (I feel awful saying it like that). I guess I got a little carried away looking at her Wikipedia article and all of the books she's written.
Overall, I would definitely say The Handmaid's Tale was a good, really good even, book. It just wasn't great. This is going to sound strange, but I think the reason I may not be so over-the-moon for the book is that I take the storyline for granted. Religious fanatics take over and impose their ridiculous laws on women. The ground women lose just grows and grows until all women are separated into, basically, four groups: Wives, Handmaids, Marthas, and Aunts (also a couple other, but I'll leave it like that), all to serve the men and produce children. People are subject to the new laws, which are a ridiculous (I don't know why I keep using this word today, not just on here) interpretation of very specific bible passages, especially the story of Jacob, Rachel, and Bilhah. (I'm being sparse with detail intentionally, in case you're getting frustrated with my writing, I know reading back that I am.) There are so many things you read or watch on tv that are heavily influenced by ideas introduced (maybe?) by this book.

So, ending this long-winded babble about The Handmaid's Tale, I think the book was good. Well-written, good story, and, the most over-used phrase when describing books: thought provoking.

2010 Book Challenges

This year, I will be participating in several book blog challenges:

1. 100+ Reading Challenge

2. 451 Challenge

3. Social Justice Challenge

4. The Pub

I feel like I was shortchanged with my education so far in my life and I need to find some way to supplement it. What especially got me down was reading some lists online of books you should read before college. I realized I had no fucking idea what some of the books on the lists were about, and I'm a university student (albeit in the United States). I'm not even a math or business major, but a religious studies and history student!!! I should have read these books YEARS AGO.
Well, these challenges should keep me on my toes and doing something. I'm not too ashamed to admit that I'm one of those people who, without prodding, would be completely happy to lie on the couch and watch Netflix online all day.

So, I put my book list in the side margin. It's pretty ambitious, I know. But, I took the first step today: I went to the library and picked up two books off of my list, at random: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.